The tradition of telling ghost stories at midnight during a family gathering has been followed in our family for decades. Usually, the older cousins take the initiative to scare the hell out of the younger ones. It was also compulsory to turn off the lights and light just a single candle to make the environment creepier.
During one of those ghost stories-telling moments, one of my cousins told us the story of Medusa and Perseus. The highlighted part of her story was the fight between Medusa and Perseus, and as one of the best storytellers in our family, my marvelous cousin portrayed Medusa as evil and hideous as humanly possible. Her description was so vivid, after that night, nightmares came to haunt me for years. I was quite young at that time, so things didn’t end well for me and Medusa became the most feared monster of my childhood.
Things started to change when I got into the Percy Jackson franchise and developed an interest in Greek mythology. In the beginning, I was more invested in the stories of the big three and developed a strong dislike for Zeus but never came close to Medusa as by that point, my mind already accepted Medusa as one of the most hideous monsters in Greek mythology (Partially blame the childhood nightmares) until the story of Poseidon clashed with Medusa.
The real story of the transformation of a mortal to medusa is really sad and heartbreaking. Some of the lore implies that medusa was a beautiful mortal girl who worshiped Athena, The Goddess of Wisdom. One day, when the Sea God saw her, he was blown away by the beauty and wanted to romance her but got refused. Poseidon didn’t take the rejection very well and raped her in the temple of Athena which angered the Goddess. Athena took this matter to Zeus, the king of Olympus, and as the dumbest and horny God he was, he told her to punish Medusa as she (according to him and Poseidon) was the one who seduced Poseidon. As matter of fact, Athena cursed Medusa and turned her into this monstrous gorgon.
After learning this lore, I was kind of disappointed at Athena because so far, she came off the most logical and rational thinking goddess of the whole Greek mythology franchise. It is unacceptable to believe the fact that she didn’t know what event occurred in her own time during the time Medusa and Poseidon were present. I had to know why she punished Medusa instead of Poseidon, so the digging for answers began and soon came across lore where it said that Athena knew about the whole incident, she was aware of the innocence of Medusa, but unable to disobey her father’s order. In the dilemma of doing the most rational and reasonable thing, she cursed Medusa in a way where she can have the power to protect herself. Thus, gave birth to one of the most known monsters in Greek mythology.
Some cruel reality points can be taken from the story of Medusa.
People with power most of the time get away without facing any consequences
Victim shaming and punishing have been a thing for thousands of years.
Sometimes the wisest and rational people failed to do the right thing.
That’s how Medusa, once the most feared monster of my childhood became a sympathized and badass character.
References
1st image of Medusa - Source
Percy Jackson collection image - Source
Image of the incident in Athena temple - source
2nd image of Medusa - Source